Christophe Jaffrelot on Narendra Modi: “he is a solitary figure”

In advance of our cover story on Narendra Modi, we spoke with political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot on his book Gujarat Under Modi

What was it that set you onto this subject matter? It’s a vast book and so an equally vast commitment! I’d love to know the story of your writing the book.

I have visited Gujarat every year, at least twice, between 2001 and 2020. I saw the traumatic effect of the 2002 anti-muslim pogrom and started to meet and interview survivors, NGO activists, journalists, academics… I had to tell this story and the strategies of Narendra Modi to retain power. I followed the 007 and 2012 election campaigns; i saw the rise to power of Gautam Adani, in the wake of Modi; the ghettoization process of Muslims; the growing inequalities; the capture of institutions, including the police and the judiciary. I had to testify. But I am an academic and, therefore, to write a book was my natural inclination – and to do it with some theoretical framework. This is why I analyse Modi’s Gujarat as an example of ethnicisation of democracy, national populism and electoral authoritarianism – these concepts have been used in other contexts.

The book manuscript was ready in November 2013. By then, the chances of Modi to win the May 2014 elections were very high and, therefore, the Indian publisher who had bought the rights of the South Asian edition was not prepared to honour our contract. I preferred to wait. It took me ten years, but the book is now out in India thanks to the courage of the Westland/Context people.

It can be a real headache writing about living people. Can you talk about the challenges of that and how you navigated it?

It was not an headache at all: I did my job by writing this book as I did with the previous ones. My arguments have been supported empirically by interviews, testimonies, secondary as well as primary sources (including statistical data). Certainly, by contrast with my previous books (for which I had interviews the main actors, Advani, Vajpayee etc.), I did not interview Modi. I did not even try: I knew that I would not learn anything more than what I knew thanks to his speeches, writings, interviews.

How important do you think previous executive experience is when taking on national leadership? What are the transferable skills from regional leadership to national leadership?

Narendra Modi is governing India the way he governed Gujarat. This is the main argument of my latest book. Certainly he did not have any previous national executive experience when he became Prime Minister. But he did not have any executive experience at all when he became Chief Minister. He had never been elected. He was an organisation man. Hei has invented a political style as Gujarat Chief Minister, that he has retained when he became Prime Minister.This style relied on four pillars: first, the polarization of the voters along ethno-religious and xenophobic lines, a strategy that culminated in the 2002 pogrom and that hate crimes (including lynchings) and hate speeches routinized subsequently; second, the capture of key institutions, including the police and the judiciary, a process that has been made easier by the ideologisation and the moral as well as material corruption of some policemen as well as lawyers; third, the making of a special kind of political economy implicating a form of populist welfarism relying on growing inequalities and crony capitalism – note here that the number one oligarque who grew in the shadow of Modi in Gujarat – Gautam Adani – has become the richest man of India under Narendra Modi Prime ministership; and fourth, the national populist repertoire of Modi who learned how to saturate the public space in Gujarat by resorting to social media, holograms etc. and who started to adopt a sarcastic, provocative register to cultivate emotions like fear, anger and plebeianism.

Has your opinion on Modi’s contribution as PM changed at all since you wrote the book?

There is one thing that I had underestimated till I wrote my two books on Modi – « Modi’s India » and « Gujarat under Modi » : his contribution to the development of infrastructure. He has prioritised the building of roads and energy plants in particular. This is a very revealing choice: in Gujarat, this investment prevailed over education and health. This is revealing of his supply side economic orientation that explains the kind of jobless growth India (and Gujarat in particular) is experiencing. India is not creating enough jobs partly because its entrepreneurs promote highly capitalistic activities and because the manpower is not sufficiently qualified.

Which figures in history and in his life do you think have most influenced Modi? Can we speak of him as having mentors or being a mentor?

The mentors Modi mentions occasionally are RSS men and religious figures. Unsurprisingly, as a young volunteer – he joined the RSS when he was a child – he has been influenced by full time cadres of the organisation known as « pracharaks » – before becoming one himself. This influence was particularly strong because he used to live, as a young man, in the RSS office in Ahmedabad. Subsequently, his other mentors came from religious orders, including the Ramakrishna Mission (that he discovered in Belur Math, near Kolkata) and the Swaminarayan movement (a sect of Hinduism based in Gujarat).

Modi has disciples, but mentoring requires a certain empathy – and is very time consuming. He has always been a solitary figure and, for a long time, an organisation man. His disciples are mostly impressed by his charisma as a national-populist since the 2000s.

What characteristics does Modi have as a leader which young people might wish to learn from?

Those who want to become political activists may emulate his discipline – a key characteristic of the RSS – and his capacity to mobilise support: his energy, in this domain, is unbeatable – and his communication acumen inimitable. Modi does not know how to interact with interlocutors (he has not given any proper press conference) but he’s a great orator and resorts to techniques of body language as well. But I do not think his style is taught anywhere yet – certainly not in universities! Incidentally, there is some confusion about his degree: he could never produce his diplomas…
 
What is Modi’s standing like with the young?

He relates to the young the way he relates to others to a large extent, by inviting them to celebrate the greatness of the Indian past, culture, achievements, future… However, he speaks also to every category of the Indian society separately. Vis-à-vis the youth, for instance, he will urge them to study and will give them advice before the exams season. He uses his monthly radio program there, Maan ki Baat.

What has Modi meant for India-UK relations?

The main difference with his predecessors pertains to the way he has tried to relate to the Indian diaspora, and to its Hindu component in particular. Relying on the groundwork the Hindu Sevak Sangh, the local version of the RSS, the British branch of the ABVP (the students union created by RSS), the VHP-UK and The Friends of BJP, another UK-based organisation related to his party, Narendra Modi has engaged the diaspora by organising mass meetings in iconic places like the Wembley stadium. Cameron and other Conservative leaders who where Indians themselves or of Indian origin (including Priti Patel) have helped him – and been supported by Hindu voters in return. This scenario is not at all specific: the equation between Modi and Trump relied on the same modus operandi. But in the US as well as UK, other diasporas – including the Muslim and Sikh diasporas – are making things more complicated because of tensions between the Modi government and these two communities. To some extent, India has exported in the West some of its domestic conflicts, as evident from the Leicester riots in 2022.

What chance do you think there is of a comprehensive trade deal between the two nations?

I would rephrase the question and ask: what will be found in the FTA that both countries are bound to sign – because the stakes are too high for nor reaching some agreement… By the way, the same thing can be said about the EU-India trade negotiations. In both cases, there are big bones of contention, in the context of rising protectionism and xenophobia. The most damaging one may concern visas: India would like the europeans to give visas to many citizens of the country (including IT engineer) but in the West (the US are no exception here), anti-immigration policies are the order of the day, in the context of the rise of the far right. Let’s close on this major paradox: national-populists like Modi and Trump have a lot in common (including their rejection of liberalism), but their want their country to be great again… at the expense of the other, inevitably.